HABITAT FOR WILDLIFE INC.

RESTORE-PROTECT-ENHANCE

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October 25, 2009

 Wildlife Habitat Renewal Project

We have started the project just south of Burnside, Coal Twp, PA just off rt125 near Shamokin. (see pictures) This past Saturday we cleaned up one third of the illegal dumping on this three acre area. Yes it was raining, but 20 dedicated volunteers  showed up and worked for three hours in the off and on rain. Because of the rain we did not accomplish as much as we hoped for, so, we have scheduled, two more dates for the cleanup, Nov. 14 and 15, both starting at 9:00am running until 1:00pm. Because of grant funding requirements the cleanup must be completed before New Years. These two days will be last opportunity to finish.

By the way we did find names and address in one of the piles and turned them over to the police. We hope they are tracked down and fined.

Donuts, hot chocolate and coffee will be provided in the morning as well as cold drinks. We will have gloves and orange safety vest. Some of this area is muddy so I suggest wearing boots. Your help is needed and is greatly appreciated, even if you can only come for an hour or two.  Call me (Dave Kaleta) at 570-850-3624 for details.  Or Email pennscrk@ptd.net

 After the site is cleaned it will be prepared, through the winter, for planting with wildlife valuable shrubs and trees in the spring.

          Project Expectations
The expectation for this site is to have a clean and wildlife friendly early successional environment. Early successional forests are very important to many game and non-game species of wildlife. Song birds, woodcock, ruffed grouse, rabbits and white tailed deer are just a few species that thrive in early successional forests. Earlier in my life we had here in the southern anthracite region of PA, vast areas of early successional forest that held great populations of grouse and deer, but over time the forest matured into large stands of oak and other hard woods. The result was a large down turn in grouse and deer populations. We hope to turn that around.  Read more about reforesting mine lands and early successional forest at this link:  http://arri.osmre.gov/CSS/PDFs/Pubs/FRA_No.5.pdf

I will keep you updated on the projects progression in future emails.

Partners for this project include;

The PA Environmental Council, the PA Game Commission, Woodcock Limited of PA, Northumberland County Juvenile Probation office, Coal Township, the Rosini family, Dunkin’ Donuts and of course  Habitat for Wildlife.

Now, for the bad good news! As you know the US economy has not been doing well, the result for Habitat for Wildlife (HFW) has been a great decline in donations and grant approval to the point of being almost nonexistent.  Pennsylvania has eliminated DCED discretionary grants from this year’s budget. In the past we have relied heavily on these grants to fund our many cleanups, food plot plantings and wildlife habitat improvement projects. We are looking into other sources of funding and have applied and been turned down on two. I am asking you to help us during these lean times, with a donation. Any amount will help, even a dollar or two will go a long way in an organization such as HFW where no one gets paid, that’s right all of us are volunteers.  Your donation is tax deductable as we have a 501(c)3 designation with the IRS.

Please make checks payable to and mail to:
Habitat for Wildlife Inc.
146 E. Sunbury St
Shamokin, Pa
17872

www.habitat4wildlife.org
pennscrk@ptd.net

Thank You,
David F. Kaleta, president
Habitat for Wildlife Inc.